Giuseppina Alliata (Katharina Isabel of Teck)

"''Soon; I shall know the foolery which has been wrecked upon the island of Sicily by your foolhardiness".

Giuseppina Alliata (25 April [O.S. 13 April] 1848 – 17 July [O.S. 4 July] 1939) was Queen of Sicily from her marriage to King Alfonso III on 26 November 1862 until his forced abdication on 17 July [O.S. 4 July] 1939. Originally Princess Katharina Isabel of Teck at birth, she changed her name to Giuseppina Alliata when she converted and was received into the Roman Catholic Church. She and her immediate family (excluding her sisters and parents) were all killed while in Fascist Italian captivity in 1939, during the Second World War. In 2000, the Roman Catholic Church canonized her as Saint Giuseppina, the Queen Protector of Sicily and the Italian Nation.

A favorite granddaughter of Princess Henriette of Nassau-Weilburg, Giuseppina was, like her grandmother, one of the lesser-known royal carriers of the genetic disease of haemophilia; known amongst the European royals as the "royal bleeding disease". She bore several hemophiliac heirs, the most famous of them being, Feodora Henriette, Tsesarevna of Sicily, who attempted to escape her Facist captors; being shot, bayoneted and bludgeoned until she stopped "breathing"; in truth, Feodora was already on her way to the British Isles where she would remain until the Second World War was ended. Her passive nature and lack of involvement in political matters of the Kingdom of Sicily, led many Italians to declare that her death was unjustified, as she was not involved in any political matters involving the Sicilian Government. The only child of her and her husband to escape the atrocies was Princess Plumeria; the Princess would hold a long-lasting grudge against the Government of Facist Italy and her Facist captors for murdering her parents and a large majority of her close paternal Sicilian relatives. Her death sparked an outrage among members of her family that had escaped and Benito Mussolini (the leader of Facist Italy) was held responsible for the crime of organizing their deaths. With the death of Mussolini, the brutal deaths of Giuseppina, her husband, a large majority of her husband`s relatives, and almost all of her children were avenged.